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Monday, August 20, 2012

Al Quds Day hate fest highlights multiculturalism`s failures

They came by the busloads from mosques in Brampton, the Islamic Society of York Region, and Toronto`s Thorncliife Park area to descend like a swarm of angry locust on the seat of Ontario`s government at Queen`s Park. Their speakers, with thick foreign accents and mangled syntax, spoke of how "the Canadian values" are not represented by our elected national government or supporters of the middle east`s only democratic country. Then, amid shouts of "Allahu Akhbar!," groups of surly disciples of Iran's murderous dictator Ruhollah Khomeini, grubby men trailed by women shrouded from head to foot in chadors and niqabs, paraded to the American consulate.

Khomeinists al Quds demonstration in Toronto - Aug 18

The reason for it all was the annual hate fest called al Quds Day, which Khomeini began in 1979 as a means of rallying Muslims to the cause of Israel's destruction. This confluence of anger and theocratic fanaticism was closely watched by the media after the hateful invective of last year's al Quds rally in Toronto became a media centerpiece. Learning from the past, this year the speakers were on their best behavior, though a couple of them did flounder into minor moments of anti-Semitism. But aware of the media attention, despite ambitions of imposing an Islamic caliphate upon us, for the most part they restrained their urge to invoke cries for Jihad and Islamic Sharia Law.

Though followers of Iran's despots, most of them were Shites of Pakistani origin. A few were Sunni sycophants of the Iranian regime, like the event's best known and most notorious speaker, the firebrand Muslim demagogue, York Region Islamic Center's Imam, Zafar Bangash.

Amid his denunciations of the "Zionist regime" and Canada's "right-wing, fascist media," on this occasion Bangash didn't extol his idols in Iran. But where he travels, the shadow of the Ayatollahs' dictates are never far away. Earlier this year, at a protest that attracted much less attention, Bangash revealed his absolute devotion to them, saying admiringly, "I consider the Islamic Republic of Iran to be the only Islamic state in the world today...I have met the leadership of the Islamic Republic of Iran and they represent the true values of Islam today.They make us proud of Islam!"

Bangash addresses crowd at Pakistani consulate
in April

Torture and murder of political opponents, deprivation of free speech, the systematic rape of female prisoners placed in jail for crimes such as "immodesty," the persecution of religious and ethnic minorities, Holocaust denial and the absence of democracy is what is imposed by Iran's leaders whom Bangash esteems so highly.

What should be alarming is that Bangash, an acolyte of the world's leading sponsor and exporter of terrorism, is considered an influential leader in the Canadian Muslim community. And more like him are arriving from Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Iran, Libya and other undemocratic bastions of barbaric medieval tribalism every day. Most come to escape the dysfunctional tyranny of their homelands. But too many come as evangelists of hatred and repression.

Rounding Queen's Park to shouts of Allahu Akbar!

And we're bending over backwards to accommodate their intolerance.

On Saturday's al Quds gathering in Toronto, a man walking his dog through the protest at Queen's Park was assaulted by police and threatened with arrest for offending Muslim sensibilities. It sounds too shocking to be believed, but fortunately, the incident was captured on video. Another man was threatened with arrest for inciting a riot. Not because he was urging anyone on to violence, or for disobeying police instructions, but for brandishing an Israeli flag near the Muslim demonstrators.

The idea behind the niqab is that a woman should be completely covered because the female form might entice a Muslim man to ravage her. Similarly, Toronto Police believed that the al Quds demonstrators were so incapable of recognizing other people's right to free expression and likely to become violent that to mollify them they violated the rights of law-abiding Canadian citizens .

Events like this shout out the failings of multiculturalism. Immigrants whose aspirations are not only to resist integration but to impose their oppressive theocratic ideologies on the rest of us are a threat to this nation's safety and security.

The Ministry of Immigration and Citizenship is currently conducting consultations on ways to improve our immigration system. If the al Quds hate fest is any indicator, the system doesn't need an improvement; it needs a complete overhaul.

The Khomeinist mob marches down University Avenue to the American consulate - Aug 18

11 comments:

Anonymous
said...

"Their speakers, with thick foreign accents and mangled syntax, spoke of how "the Canadian values" are not represented by our elected national government" Here's the ironic part, if you looked at articles in say the Toronto Telegram about Jewish rallies held at Queen's Park you'd find much the same languauge, the same warnings about our way of life being threatened by foreigners and the same calls for tighter immigration$

As the Toronto Telegram hasn't been around for about 40 years, I'll have to take your word on that. But you might want to try putting that sentence in context. Jewish immigrants weren't trying to impose Talmudic law on all of Canadian society, nor were they calling for the destruction of a democratic ally of Canada, nor were they representing a culture and ideology that represses free speech.

We have immigrants from all over the world who are a tremendous benefit to Canada - East Asian immigrants from countries like China and South Korea, or those from Italy and Scotland, and Sikhs and Hindus from India have made enormous contributions to our culture and have integrated very successfully.

Implying that anyone who is concerned about preserving the democratic nature of our culture is somehow xenophobic is facile and simplistic. We need immigrants - and many if not most Muslim immigrants to Canada are a boon to our society. But there are a significant number of exceptions and if we continue to indiscriminately allow people into Canada who are hostile to our freedoms, it is suicidal.

There are some who would like us, as a society to commit suicide through cultural relativism, but I am not among them and am not afraid to speak out against those who want us to take that deplorable path.

I was referring to Jewish led labour rallies in the 1930s and if you read the "journalism" of the day, Jewish immigrants were being accused of trying to bring a "foreign" ideology to Canada - "Bolshevism" as the papers used to say, referring to socialism or communism. The paranoia got so bad that at the urging of the police Toronto City Council made it illegal for people to hold meetings in Yiddish (labour meetings held at the Standard Theatre at Spadina and Dundas were raided for that reason) Jews were seen as the exact same sort of immigrant threat with a foreign ideology aimed at overthrowing Canadian society that you ascribe to Muslims today. Kind of ironic, eh?

Except for the fact that there were actually Jewish Bolsheviks immigrants who indeed were trying to bring Communist revolutionary politics into Canada. It doesn't impugn the larger Jewish community any more than the Khomeinists and their terror-supporting ilk means that all Muslims are violent terrorists.

But there is a significant sector; ones who quite purposefully resist integration and are here to spread their ideology of hate. You might want to find out just what Khomeini's version of Shia represents and what his followers are actually saying.

We most certainly need to screen those type of people out of our immigration flow.

But as with some of your friends in the blogs and on Sun TV today, the actions of a few Jews were used to impugn the entire community. "Judeo-Bolsehvism" (as Hilter called it) was used as a pretext by anti-Semites to almost completely cut off Jewish immigration. Similarly, you find calls among rightists in Europe and here to cut off all Muslim immigration.

I have NEVER called for a moratorium on immigration on the basis of religion. There were Muslims at the al Quds hate fest who protesting against the Khomeinists, which I'd written about in my coverage of the event.

But we need to be very careful about who we let into Canada and have been far too lax about it for far too long. Just as we should have let refugees from Nazism and Communism into Canada, we should not have let Nazis and Communists in to spread their ideology of hate. Their are violent, dangerous strains within Islam (and other cultures) and we would have to be suicidal to continue to accommodate them.

Burying one's head up one's posterior while playing the fake "Islamophobia" card is getting recognized for its dishonesty and destructiveness. Are there people who are "Islamophobic?" Of course - but that does in no way mitigate the real threat that is posed to this country by the infusion of actual supporters of Islamic terror and totalitarianism.

And I'm sorry, making a point about "thick accents" is just xenophobic and the same sort of bullshit that Jewish immigrants had to put up with. Ironic that 70 years ago people with your exact mindset were using your arguments to discriminate against Jews. As for barring Jewish Communists from entering Canada - so you're ok with Jews being trapped in Europe and killed in concentration camps if, like many Jews in the 1930s, they were Communist (or maybe socialist or anarchist?). Good to know that your McCarthyism has a murderous tinge to it. Have you ever considered that some of your relatives may have been Communists? Maybe you weren't told about that, but the likelihood is if you were a European Jew someone in your family was a Communist - someone you've just said you would have been ok with being killed by the Nazis since you'd only allow non-Communist Jews to enter the country.